What are your most unpopular opinions?

In My Humble Opinion
661

I promised I’d go into the heavier stuff, right? Well, maybe. Anyway, here goes…

EVERY Christmas song played during the holiday season is schmaltzy, treacly, unbearable soul-crushing dreck. All of them. Every single damn one. Anyone who grumbles about “meterology” or says “THIS song is so awful” is full of it; it’s like taking 20 bullets in the legs and saying that you really hated the first 3. Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, St. Wencelas, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, dreck, every damn second it it. And not only do the traditional novelty songs, Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer and Canon in D, don’t alleviate the endless ocean of treacle and sap and glurge, they’ve been run into the ground so much they’re now part of the problem.

Also, Christmas season starts the day after Thanksgiving, period. No songs or decorations before then. This should be a federal law.

Electric vehicles are awesome. It is nothing short of mind-blowing that we have viable cars which require no gasoline, filters, or radiators (and they turn like a dream) right now. This is truly the wave of the future, and I feel blessed that it came about in my lifetime. There are limitations, to be sure, but there will come a point, not so far from now, where we just have to deal with them. I also think that the only reasons it took so long were good-for-nothing oil industry hacks constantly shrieking “It’s impossible! It’ll never work!” and a tragically shortsighted view of our planet and energy situation.

For a homicide trial, the judge and jury should have the right to consider different levels of criminality and convict for a lesser charge if there is insufficient evidence for the original. Heck, the defendant has the right to plea bargain; it’s only fair to give the prosecution similar leeway, right? So if you know for certain that he pulled the trigger but cannot determine if it was premeditated, nab him for manslaughter. I’m tired of known, indisputable, vicious, remorseless killers like George Zimmerman walking and otherwise intelligent people defending this (and getting pretty condescending about it, I might add) because the law says this or the standard for that is blah blah blah. Change the stupid, inflexible, clumsy, unworkable, useless law.

Limits on welfare should be lifted for the simple reason that a lot of people just plain need the help and it would be inhumane as a society to deny them their basic needs. However, every adult with two or fewer children receiving welfare benefits beyond a reasonable time period (say, three years) should be required to be sterilized. And anyone with three or more children should be required to get sterilized before seeing a penny. Period. No exceptions. For anybody. I don’t give a crap about anyone’s “god” or “traditional values” or “biological purpose” or “inalienable rights”. If you love them so much, let them feed you. Overpopulation is one of the biggest problems facing the world right now, and there are too damn many miserable, deluded, or even outright crazy kids who are that way because their parents don’t know the first thing about parenting. We might not be able to fix such monumental problems, but damned if we’re going to add to them.

Any woman should be allowed to get a hysterectomy, no questions asked, on the grounds that she really, really hates getting periods. I’m sorry, but an orifice that bleeds uncontrollably several days every freaking month is a biological screwup, and I don’t see why anyone should have to just put up with it any more than impacted wisdom teeth or sleep apnea.

…no, really. It’s not all video games and American Ninja Warrior with me, y’know. :slight_smile:

662

Totally agreed on both points. Christmas needs to fuck off and die.

663

The problem is automated music that regurgitates a Christmas playlist all day long. Treat Christmas muzak like the aural equivalent of billboards and ban them as a nuisance.

My understanding was that the prosecution could offer a plea deal and the accused could accept it, not that an accused could demand a plea.

Doctors are understandably reluctant to perform abdominal surgery as an elective procedure.

664

I’ve got one: bad behaviour does not get a pass because you’re old. Respect must be earned, not simply granted because you’re 80 or whatever.

This does not mean that we shouldn’t cherish our elders and help them if we so choose; it means that that is voluntary. But an old person who marches down the street barking obscenities, as I’ve seen twice in the past few weeks, should be considered to be an asshole disturbing the peace first of all, and given medical treatment or punishment as appropriate.

665

Parents should be allowed to euthanise newborns that have severe defects.

It’s OK to say “retarded”.

If you believe in god, then your education and/or intelligence are deficient.

If the Syrian rebels ever come to power, they will prove to be worse than the current regime, so they shouldn’t be supported.

The wishes of the dead need not be respected. Dead people have no rights whatsoever.

Wearing perfumes, plucking your eyebrows, and painting your toenails is disgusting.

Fat people are disgusting. Bodybuilders are even more so.

Folk wisdom is the opposite of wisdom. In fact, everything that has the word “Folk” in it is inherently inferior.

Scaring children, yelling at them, and making them cry is not child abuse.

Annoying your cat until it hisses or attacks you is not animal abuse.

Effeminate gays are as annoying as overly masculine guys. I don’t want anything to do with either.

The government should not fund sports, culture or fine arts. Let supply and demand take care of those.

It’s not a tragedy when a species goes extinct.

It’s not a tragedy when someone dies.

Affirimative action is unethical.

If any kind of humour offends you, then you deserve to be offended tenfold.

666

Being a GLBT teenager, the mother of an autistic child, a combat veteran, or a breast cancer survivor doesn’t give you a free pass for bad behavior of any type either.

667

Then you should make that clear to them now. Funeral directors engage in upselling that would make the most venal car salesman blush.

668

Ugh, I need to say this somewhere because I’ve been under siege by the animal rights brigade over the past few days. I do not give a fuck about animals. I just don’t. I don’t go around kicking puppies, but don’t whine to me about not eating animals because it’s cruel. I don’t care. And what really grinds the shit out of my gears are meat eaters who who go on the animal rights campaign. O’RLY? Really, motherfuckers? Unless you’re going all Portlandia on everything you eat all of the time, making sure that your lamb chop, Fred, was given a massage before being humanely euthanized, that cheeseburger you’re eating was treated like shit. Get over it and don’t bring up animals to me anymore because I don’t care.

669

Wearing sandals without socks is even worse than wearing sandals with socks.

Speaking of socks: ankle socks are for idiots.

It is not necessary to wear a different shirt every day. Only stupid or brainwashed people believe that you can’t wear the same shirt for up to a week when you’re not a manual labourer.

All men look better with beards than without beards. No exceptions.

Most cops are pretty decent guys.

Americans have a great sense of humour.

The Big Bang Theory is badly written, badly directed and badly acted.

Family Guy is as unfunny as the Big Bang Theory.

Republic is not better than monarchy.

Tibet should not gain independence from China, Kosovo must not be recognised as a sovereign country, and Catalans who want independence from Spain are traitors.

The operas that Verdi wrote are garbage. But some of Wagner’s are quite good.

Anton Bruckner should have listened to his friends who advised him to cut the boring passages out of his symphonies.

Korsakov’s orchestrations of Mussorgksy’s works are better than the originals.

Glenn Gould was the most overrated pianist in the history of the piano.

Karl Richter was a bad conductor.

670

Career criminals should be put to death.
3 strikes is the right idea, but WAYYYY over-broad.

3 killings on 3 different occasions probably means the species would be better off without you.

That includes a DUI episode which results in your car doing the killing.

There is no conceivable reason for anyone to have a rap sheet listing over 10 class-A felonies (crime which used to mean death).

Death penalties which take so long as to allow the condemned to die of natural causes is NOT a death penalty.
Sentence: You are sentenced to die. You have, at most, 5 years to weasel out of it. If you are still in custody, you will be executed the day after the 5 years expire. Clocks starts now. PERIOD.

Any police or prosecutor who suppresses evidence in such a way as to cause the death of an innocent person is executed. No appeals. Failure to perform DNA matching, or falsifying the results in a capital case is a class A felony.

671

Very true, and not only for ESOL. I see Americans pull that “sorry, I don’t understand” stunt overseas on a regular basis.

Most, as in 99.9%, of comic books are crap, and the fans putting them forward as serious works of art are full of shit. Watchmen is a paragraph worth of interesting ideas and couple of snappy quotes, not a literary masterpiece. You think they’re fun? That’s fine, so do I, but quit trying to hand me a can of Spam while telling me it’s Kobe beef.

672

Ok, I’m in.

-Straws are for children. No self respecting adult should ever drink through a straw. Further, cocktail stir-sticks are not straws. Do not, under any circumstances, drink your alcoholic beverage through the stir-stick. You look like (and most likely are) a jackass.

-Violence, or the hint thereof, is sometimes an okay solution. I’m not saying you should run out and beat someone’s ass. I’m just saying some people have it coming.

-Patchouli is the worst smell on earth. Seriously. People who wear patchouli as a fragrance definitely have it coming.

-There is a huge difference between being socially awkward and being an introvert. Most people who claim to be introverts are actually people who just suck at playing well with others.

-In the US, you should be required to pass a driving test every two years or lose the privelege.

673

Absolutely correct, and I’ve noticed a similar phenomenon with extroversion. In my experience, most self-identified “extroverts” are just loud, self-absorbed jerks.

674

All 21st century music sucks (i.e. 2000 - Present)

675

You are in the wrong thread. This one is asking for controversial viewpoints.

676

OP asked for opinions that make people’s blood boil. I’ve definitely pissed off people saying this. Like, created lifetime grudges.

677

Hell, I didn’t even know there was any 21st century music!

678

The United States should not just launch air strikes against Syria in retaliation for Assad’s use of chemical weapons but should impose a no fly zone over the country and actively work to aid the FSA in defeating Assad’s forces via air strikes (and bomb the Al Nusra front people while at it: blow to bits two enemies with one bomb…).

679

Robert Jordan’s death is the best think that happened to the Wheel of Time series - Brandon Sanderson is twice the writer he ever was. If only he had died five volumes earlier.

(Is that even controversial?)

680

I think that true psychiatric depression is a very rare medical condition, and that most people diagnosed with it nowadays, are simply terribly demoralized and disaffected by “postmodern” Western society, particularly in the US. I think that very, VERY few of those currently swallowing antidepressants, truly should have needed them.

I think that most suicide-prevention programs are a waste of time and resources, and may actually backfire in no few cases.

OCD should not be classified as a mental-health disorder; it is a neurological condition related closely to tics, and other spastic neuro disorders. Someday, psychiatrists will be forced to admit this and turn it over to legitimate medical doctors.

Social workers and psychotherapists are useless; there are people who do not want to be helped. There are also those who only “need help” according to the biases lodged firmly in the head of the helper.

Psychotherapists, in particular, are greedy charlatans just as much as any lawyer, politician or cell-phone salesman.

“Adult survivors of abuse” mostly would have “survived” with or without the mental-health system, and probably would have mostly turned out better and happier if forced to get a grip on it and move on unassisted.